One Priesthood After Another: Hebrews, Concurrent Blood Sacrifice, and the Destruction of the Temple

This article argues that it is unlikely that the author of Hebrews, like many other Jewish texts from the second temple period, understood the sacrificial activities involving blood in the earthly and heavenly temples as functioning at the same time. For the author of Hebrews, the ongoing work of Jesus in the heavenly temple precludes the activity in the earthly temple; so long as Jesus is working in the heavens as high priest there can be no activity on the earthly temple below. Yet the author of Hebrew does not argue for the “obsolescence” of Judaism but rather for a spatial and priestly modification of the covenant. Jesus’s priestly activity does not abolish the Jewish law, but only modifies one aspect of it related to priests in order to legitimize his activity in the heavenly temple.